Writing for Two Reading Modes

Serving the Biliterate Brain

Here’s an experiment: Try reading an 18th of 19th-century novel today. It could be Austen, Dickens, Eliot-choose your favorite.

Even if you loved the book years ago, you may find you have to slow down your brain to get into it. You need to switch reading modes, and it may feel awkward at first.

You have more than one way of reading.

Maryanne Wolf is author of Reader, Come Home and a scientist and scholar who studies reading. She coined the term the biliterate brain, referring to digital reading and deeper reading.

• Digital reading consumes much of our time. We navigate a sea of digital content by skimming and filtering, extracting what we need despite distractions.
• Deeper reading is more immersive or reflective. It happens more often with physical books and printed matter.

Most of our ordinary reading lives in the digital realm. This reading is valuable and important, and the neural pathways in charge of digital reading get plenty of practice.

Deeper reading is becoming rarer, but precious.

In her excellent book Reader, Come Home, Wolf argues that we lose proficiency at deeper reading unless we specifically practice or cultivate it. Our brains…